A highly versatile and mobile six-legged mobile robot is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,481,513. That patent is incorporated herein by this reference. This robot exhibits unprecedented mobility on rough and difficult terrain. But, such a six-legged robot is not optimized for energy efficiency, smooth operation, payload ability, and range when used on flat terrain.
Conventional wheeled robots do exhibit higher energy efficiencies and ranges than legged and tracked robots when used on relatively flat terrain. But, such wheeled and tracked robots are unable to traverse rough and difficult terrain as well as legged robots.
To our knowledge, no prior robot design exhibits efficiency, smooth operation, payload capacity and the range of wheeled robots on flat terrain and also the ability of legged robots to successfully traverse rough terrain. Moreover, no prior robot designed for traversing terrain is also able to efficiently operate in aquatic environments.